Local Exhibits

"It's Time to Address'er Drawers"

"According to Plan"

"Beyond Dreams"

Art Gym Denver

October 4 - 26, 2018

Opening reception: Thursday October 4 from 5-8pm

Art Gym Denver is excited to present in the Art Gym Gallery It’s Time to Address’er Drawers by installation artist, Joel Armstrong. Opening in the Common Space Gallery is According to Plan by Christine Ann Nicols and Beyond Dreams by Lesley Renner. All will open with a reception October 4 from 5 - 8PM.

It’s Time to Address’er Drawers by Joel Armstrong includes a series of wire drawings depicting words and objects from a letter written by the artist’s mother. The drawings are found in and around a chest of drawers where the viewer can interact with the words and write their own meaning for the letter on the wall.

Time and corrosion are at the center of many of Armstrong’s work, including the pieces in this exhibition. History and meaning have a way of evolving (or devolving) through the hindsight of time. Information and facts change as we learn more about a situation. Growing from this idea, the experience of this work transforms over the course of the exhibition through the audience participation. As the viewer changes the order of the words on the wall, the meaning of the piece evolves. In the same vein, the exhibition also includes a series of rust and gold paintings, focusing on the temporal nature of the corrosion of metals.

According to Plan is comprised of 3D metalsmith works by Christine Ann Nicols. Her practice has evolved from smaller jewelry works to larger Utilitarian Sculptures. The 3D works presented in this exhibition are a series of lamps made with copper and geode rocks. Nicols wants her work to “serve a purpose, but look nice while doing it,” and these lamps certainly do that. Repeating the natural shapes found in the geodes, she cuts the copper plates to form the structure for the lamp fitting. The combination leads to an entirely new and singularly unique object. When asked about the concepts found in her work, Nicols replied “tell me what you think it means, and I’ll tell you that you’re right.”

Inspired by the works of Klimt, Lesley Renner’s pastel drawings create a dreamlike scape of bold color and pattern. Beyond Dreams brings together works exploring the ways in which Renner utilizes pattern and color to relate her dreams in a visual manner. Viewing the tetraptych of a moon, included in the exhibition, leaves you with the sensation of looking through a window at night in the liminal space between sleep and consciousness. She skews and alters the viewpoint to emulate that experience perfectly. In her drawings of trees, Renner tries to imagine the colors from her dreams and elevate them even further. This is inherent to the work. She says, “the color in my pieces are beyond the colors I see in my dreams.”

Located at 1460 Leyden St., Art Gym Denver is a 17,000 sq. ft. creative workspace for artists and arts professionals that is open to the public Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. For information visit www.ArtGymDenver.com.